TALKING FILMS
Nasreen Munni Kabir
Nasreen Munni Kabir is one of Bollywood’s indefatigable interlocutors. Here she is in conversation with Javed Akhtar who, with Salim Khan, rewrote the Bollywood hero and invented the Angry Young Man that was given cinematic life by Amitabh Bachchan. You’ll also find out whether Akhtar believes in extraterrestrial life.
NMK: What for you is the most important aspect of a script?
JA: It starts with the germ of an idea. It may be the plot, the characters, or a particular incident, or a twist. Sometimes, you create a character and become fascinated by that character and you weave a story around him or her. Sometimes you have the middle of the story, not the beginning, nor the end. But you have a twist in the plot. In India, we still follow the Victorian script structure—because even today we have an interval in the middle of the film. So once you find an interesting interval point, you can weave the story back to the beginning, and then you can develop the second half of the story at a later point. Sometimes a one-line plot comes to you. In a finished script, it’s the basic line, the spine of the script, that’s important. To some extent you can afford to go wrong in a subplot, or in a scene, or in a sequence, but not in the basic structure of the story. Every story is some kind of a parable, it is some kind of a bridge. It starts from a point, and it should create some kind of symmetry that links incidents that aren’t apparently connected.
NMK: When you are credited with story, screenplay and dialogue, what does this involve? I am not sure whether the same distinction between story, screenplay and dialogue is made in Hollywood.
JA: You see, we had writers from Bengal and South India working in the cinema. Now they understood the workings of the Hindi/ Urdu cinema, but they didn’t have a good enough command over either language to be able to write dialogue. So they’d write the screenplay and a Hindi or Urdu writer would write the dialogue. That’s how the different professions of a screenplay writer and a dialogue-writer became defined.
NMK: Can you tell me the difference between a story and a screenplay? Mr India, for example, could essentially be described as the story of a man who discovers a magic potion that makes him invisible. This power enables him to conquer all evil forces.
JA: This is the outline of the story. The screenplay is what happens to the character of Mr India—how to tell his story on the screen. I’ll give you an example. Suppose I tell you a story of a man who was very poor—this is a very basic example, not necessarily for you but for people who are unfamiliar with the term ‘screenplay’. This impoverished man goes hungry but he does nothing that’s dishonest. Now this is the beginning of a story. How do I tell this story on the screen? I can’t use subtitles that read, ‘Here goes an honest man who is very poor.’ So I show the man sleeping on the pavement or living in a hut in a shanty town. One day, he passes by a restaurant and he sees some people eating; he looks in their direction with a sad expression. So I realize he’s hungry. Suddenly a man crosses him in the street and the man’s wallet falls on the pavement. Our hero picks up that wallet, it’s full of currency notes. He runs after the rich man and says, ‘Sir, your wallet.’ Our man is unshaven and wearing dirty clothes. The wealthy man is surprised, he takes the wallet and looks at this poor fellow and tries to give him 10 rupees or 100 rupees as a reward. Our hero refuses to take the money; instead he says, ‘Whatever I did was my duty. I am a man of honour.’ Now we realize here’s a man who is poor, hungry, honest, and also a man of principles. So I understand everything about this man’s character through incidents.
NMK: So that is the screenplay? And the dialogue is the exchange between the characters?
JA: Yes. When this honest man returns the wallet and the rich man offers him a reward, this exchange could be expressed in a hundred different ways. Now comes the turn of a good dialogue writer: what will the character say in different circumstances. There was once a beautiful line I heard in a film written by Mr Inder Raj Anand. There’s a poor man played by Raj Kapoor, who finds a wallet full of bank notes, and returns it to its owner. The rich man was played by Motilal. When he gets his wallet back, Motilal invites Raj Kapoor to attend a huge party full of rich people.
NMK: Is the film Anaari?
JA: Perhaps it was Anaari. At the party, this poor man gets very intimidated and says, ‘Who are these people?’ And his host answers, ‘Don’t be intimidated by them …’
‘Ye vo log hain jinhein tumhari tarah sadakon pe noton se bhare batwe mile the, lekin unhone vapas nahin kiye.’
(These are people, who like you, found wallets on the street filled with bank notes, but they never returned them.)
NMK: Fabulous line! Now what about plots in Hindi films? Howard Hawks said there are about thirty plots in all of drama and the only new elements are the characters and how they do things differently. How many basic plots do you think there are in the Indian context?
JA: I think thirty is too many, maybe ten. These are what you’d call master plots. Then there’s the treatment, the characterisation, the smallest incidents that make one story different from another. Take a love story, now what’s a love story? A boy and girl fall in love then they part because of some obstacle: they’re from a different class, or they’re of a different religion or some adversary keeps them apart. In the end they meet either in life or in death. Ninety to ninety-nine per cent of love stories depend on this plot— it’s only the treatment that changes. What’s the difference between Romeo and Juliet and Bobby? It’s the same basic story.
NMK: But Bobby doesn’t end in tragedy, the lovers live.
JA: That’s a possible ending and lovers can die. But then they meet in death.
NMK: There has to be union.
JA: Union. Even in death.
NMK: Going back to basic film plots, what are these ten plots? I imagine they are inspired by the Hindu epics, and Arabian storytelling traditions?
JA: Roman mythology, Greek mythology, or Hindu mythology. Classical stories. You find these plots in mythological epics: the lost-and-found, the vendetta, the love story. The lost-and-found is to be found in the story of Rustom and Sohrab. And Shakuntala is a lost-and-found story. You find the vendetta story in mythology—somebody kills a child’s parents and the child grows up and takes revenge. These master plots are inspired from basic human instincts and so are made up of stories that represent one particular instinct: love, hate, jealousy, curiosity or whatever. So if your story relies heavily on one particular human instinct, the character will be obsessed with love or hate.
NMK: People have often said that these master plots are based on the nine rasas. I imagine this is close to your idea that basic human instints inspire plots. And because these instincts aren’t very numerous, repetition cannot be avoided. Maybe that’s why Indian popular cinema is always accused of being formulaic. How can a screenwriter innovate?
JA: The requirement of an Indian film writer is peculiar. He is supposed to write a totally original script that has come before. [NMK laughs]
NMK: Nothing too outrageously new.
JA: No. Mainstream Hollywood also has its dos and don’ts, they too have their taboos: this will sell and this won’t sell. But perhaps they have a bigger range than us. We have many states in this country, all of them are Indian states, but each has its different culture, tradition and style. In Gujarat, you have one kind of culture, then you go to Punjab, you have another, and the same applies in Rajasthan, Bengal, Orissa or Kerala. There is one more state in this country, and that is Hindi cinema. And so Hindi cinema also has its own culture. Punjabi culture and Rajasthani culture may differ but we understand the differences, their cultures are not from a different planet. In the same way, Hindi cinema’s culture is quite different from Indian culture, but it’s not alien to us, we understand it.
NMK: We understand all the codes.
JA: As a matter of fact, Hindi cinema is our closest neighbour. [laughs] It has its own world, its own traditions, its own symbols, its own expressions, its own language, and those who are familiar with it understand it. The nearest example for a non-Indian to understand is the Western in Hollywood. Never were there sheriffs and gun-slingers like the ones you see in a Western. And never was there a village with one street where a man would start walking silently and wait for the draw; [laughs] this whole culture has been developed by Hollywood. And it has become a reality itself.
NMK: It’s the myth of the American past.
JA: It’s myth that Hollywood has created. In the same way, Hindi cinema has its own myths. It even has its own architecture: grand houses that have a grand stairway leading into the living room!
NMK: A stairway to heaven!
JA: Yes! You see the father coming down these grand stairs wearing a dressing gown with a pipe in hand. He stands on the steps and says pompously, ‘Ye shaadi nahin ho sakti’ (This marriage cannot take place). Or you have a mother talking to the photograph of her dead husband. Or a son who tells his mother, ‘Ma, mujhe samajhne ki koshish karo’ (Mother, try to understand me). I am quite convinced that in this country no son has ever said such a thing to his mother. In the 1930s, some writer must have translated from the English, ‘Try to understand me.’
NMK: It sounds like a line in a James Cagney film.
JA: It’s a word-for-word translation of ‘Try to understand me.’
NMK: Who are your preferred directors in contemporary American cinema?
JA: Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg. I liked Annie Hall. This film looked at the fragility of human relationships in a neurotic society in an extremely humorous manner and without any sense of bitterness. To me, Annie Hall felt like a smile that hid a lot of sadness.
NMK: Which of Spielberg’s films did you like?
JA: E.T.
NMK: Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?
JA: There are trillions of stars and galaxies in this large universe. To believe that life exists only on this planet and no where else is to believe that life is a miracle and I don’t believe in miracles. It does not mean that I believe in cigar-shaped UFOs that transport little green men either. [laughs] I don’t think the vast distances involved will ever allow us any physical contact with other civilizations in the universe, but some day we may succeed in making some kind of radio contact. I think for the past thirty or forty years, scientists and astronomers have been working in that direction. I’d give anything to see the day when they’ll ultimately succeed.
NMK: Going back to the basic plots in Hindi films, how would you categorize classics like Gunga Jumna or Deewar?
JA: With films like Gunga Jumna or Deewar, you’re on very safe ground. They may take on different garbs, they may display differrent furniture and settings, and different accents, but the films are based on classical plots. In our films too, we didn’t experiment as far as the choice of plots was concerned. But classical plots have advantages and disadvantages: the advantage is that you’re treading on safe ground, but the disadvantage is that you’re walking on a much-trodden path. The crunch becomes, ‘All right, you’ve taken a much-trodden path but what kind of carpet are you going to lay down?’
NMK: People often talk about the influence of Mother India and Gunga Jumna on Deewar. What these three films clearly have in common is their dependence on classical plots. Do you think Deewar’s comparison with these earlier classics is justified?
JA: In all honesty, yes. Mother India and Gunga Jumna were our favourite films. Salim Sahib’s and mine. We really loved those pictures. They did influence us. But I’ll hasten to add that as we developed Deewar’s script, it ceased to be either of these films. Deewar has resembled Mother India and Gunga Jumna in plot, but Deewar’s sensibility was totally different. It wasn’t only because the characters in the film wear trousers and jackets: its sensibility was very modern. We introduced a certain modernity in the setting of the film, its accent, tempo and language. Its cinematic language has also changed from the language in Gunga Jumna. It was much more urban, much more contemporary, and the kind of moral dilemma that it posed were very much of its own era.
NMK: The anger of the hero, Vijay, in Deewar seems more internalized than the one expected by Gunga in Gunga Jumna.
JA: Vijay’s anger was internal. The film also poses questions which are most universal than the question raised in Gunga Jumna. They were more relevant and contemporary. In Gunga Jumna, whatever was happening was happening to Gunga. In Deewar what was happening to Vijay was happening to many of us. Maybe we did not react like Vijay but we could identify with him more than we could with Gunga.
NMK: It seems to be that Gunga’s anger is a reaction to what is done to him directly, to his mother and to Dhanno, his beloved. Whereas Vijay’s anger is a reaction to the injustice he saw inflicted on his father.
JA: On his mother, too and on the dock workers.
NMK: Is Vijay’s anger rooted in revenge?
JA: No, he never goes in search of the man who made his father suffer. He never goes after the munshi (manager) who misbehaved with his mother. Vijay knows it is the system that is the exploiter. He sees the same exploitation at work at the dock. He revolts when he sees a dock worker dying at the hands of thugs and when he witnesses protection money being exhorted from the dock workers—it is then that Vijay revolts.
NMK: Vijay also seems to suffer from a rage within himself. It seems he cannot forgive himself for not being able to save his mother even though he was only a young child at the time; nor could he save his father from the terrible shame he had to face.
JA: I feel that on some level, Vijay is also angry with his father who accepted defeat and who could not stand up and fight. In a later scene in Deewar, Vijay’s mother tells him, ‘Why didn’t you walk away from the fight?’ And Vijay answers, ‘Are you suggesting that I too should have run away?’ Now this ‘too’ is very important. His mother then slaps Vijay. He is angry with life that created a terrible situation for his father. Vijay wasn’t very happy with the world. [smiles]
NMK: Vijay can easily fight in the world of men (the mardana), but what is his relationship with the world of women (the zenana)?
JA: Heroes like Vijay have nothing against women. They have great respect for women. But they are too shy, too introverted to show their emotions. Or accept their emotions. The only way that people who have been hurt very badly save themselves is by hiding their emotions. If they did show them, it would hurt even more. So they develop a kind of hard crust, but behind that hard crust they are soft people.
NMK: How would you describe Vijay’s relationship with the women in his life?
JA: Vijay’s relationship with the Parveen Babi character in Deewar, or his relationship with the Raakhee character in Trishul—it is very difficult for him to tell these women that he loves them. It is equally difficult for him to express his love for his brother or his mother. There is a storm raging within him so he has closed the doors. That is how such characters feel safe. They create a deewar (wall) between themselves and their emotions.
NMK: That’s very interesting. One always imagined the title of film to refer to the wall between good and bad and not a wall to hold emotions in.
JA: You have to keep guessing. The only time Vijay breaks down to a certain extent is in the temple in the final scene of the film.
NMK: But even then, he is not expressing his feelings to a fellow human-being but to God. On another point, Deewar was perhaps one of the first Hindi films in which the extended family is hugely reduced within the narrative. The various family members usually seen on the Hindi screen end up here being represented by the mother-figure. I think you and Salim Sahib started this trend of reducing the screen family to a single character—that of the mother.
JA: We were not conscious of it. What’s for sure is that the mother was always a respected figure in Hindi cinema, but Deewar gave the mother central importance. Deewar turned the mother-figure into a symbol of a certain value system, a symbol of purity, and a link between the modern and the past and tradition.
NMK: When Deewar was released, did you see it in a cinema hall?
JA: Oh yes, I did.
NMK: How did the audience react?
JA: There was a tremendous reaction. I also remember how people reacted to Zanjeer. It was the first film of its kind. The reaction was very unusual. People didn’t clap or whistle in the theatre, they watched the film in total silence and awe. I saw Zanjeer in different theatres, perhaps seven times in all. Once I was watching the film in Gaiety or Galaxy in Bandra. I remember somebody was sitting behind me, and in the scene in which Amitabh loses his temper at the police station in front of Pran—I could hear awe in the man’s voice as he said, ‘Arre, baap re baap’ (Oh my God!). Now this is something I had never heard before, and have never heard since. So by the time the audience saw Deewar, they were already familiar with that kind of anger. In Zanjeer, it was a totally new experience for them.
NMK: Vijay, the hero of Zanjeer played by Amitabh Bachchan, was also a very different kind of hero.
JA: It’s not a surprise that so many actors who were offered the lead role in Zanjeer didn’t take it. Because they couldn’t understand the kind of a hero Vijay was. Was he a hero?
NMK: Who were the other actors considered for the role?
JA: Dharamji [Dharmendra] was supposed to do the film, Dev Sahib [Dev Anand] heard the script, so did Raaj Kumar, and some other actors too. [The script is usually read out to actors rather than read by an actor.]
NMK: I am sure the actors who heard your scripts must have been struck by their difference. I’m curious to know whether you favoured naturalism in your writing—naturalism in Indian film dialogue does not seem to be a high priority.
JA: I don’t know. Literature had influenced me, and like many other people I had a weakness for a good line. But at the same time, I’ll say that I was influenced to some extent by the modern American novel. Not great literature to be honest, but best-sellers, paperbacks. They taught me one thing: precision. One-liners. Saying things in a few words, making an art of the understatement. Saying less than you want to and leaving the rest to the imagination. Exaggeration is supposed to show command over language in India. Perhaps it relates to conventions in social communication. Exaggeration is even traditionally accepted in literature. In the theatre and in the cinema, we nearly always had lengthy dialogues that were full of similes, full of metaphors, an overdose of melodrama. In films, every time the character would try to describe his emotions, he’d go into great detail. We didn’t do that. Our dialogue was intense but crisp. In spite of the fact that one of Sholay’s characters, Gabbar, for example, indulges in long soliloquies. The audience did not only enjoy the dialogues in our films but could also fill in the gaps too. None of our heroes ever told his beloved that he loves her, or that he has fallen in love. In none of the films do our characters tell the villian that he hates him. There is never a direct expression of any emotion, emotions are hinted at. So this style of dialogue is like a long chain of iceberg tips, and the icebergs are left to your imagination.
NMK: In that way, the audience is encouraged to participate in the dialogue through their imagination. A lot of Hindi cinema tends to be quite obvious and also quite theatrical: did you try to avoid being theatrical?
JA: We never indulged in rhetoric. What we realized is that if you want to give highs, you must give lows. So if you see our pictures, the dialogue isn’t usually theatrical or dramatic. But it cleverly makes proper bridges. It slips in and out of a theatrical mould. Because the transition between naturalism and a theatrical tone is slow and smooth in our films, the theatrical moments seem convincing. Indian dialogue-writers make the fatal mistake of trying to turn every line into a punchline. That creates a sense of indifference in the listener or the viewer, so when the real punchline is finally spoken, it doesn’t stand out. We never did that. We never tried to be very clever with the dialogue. Only at the right moment would we strike, otherwise we played the drama in a very low key.
NMK: Everyone talks abut the scene in Deewar in which Ravi says, ‘Mere paas Maa hai’ (I have Mother). That’s a good example of an effective punchline.
JA: Ravi could have said all kinds of things, like for example, ‘Aaj mere paas Maa ka pyar hai, mujhe ye mil gaya, vo mil gaya’ (Today I have my mother’s love, I have got this, I have got that). By contrast, take Vijay, the other character in the scene, who is providing the platform for this punchline. He has many lines before Ravi makes his mark with this single statement, and it works. Perhaps Ravi’s dialogue wouldn’t have worked quite as well without Vijay’s monologue that preceded the punchline. You have to orchestrate a scene. If you try to bombard the listener’s sensibility all the time, his sensibility will be so battered that when you want him to feel something he’ll be too tired.
Extracted from Talking Films: Conversations on Hindi Cinema with Javed Akhtar.